


Yes

by red_at_three (elle_stone)



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Age Difference, Community: st_xi_kink, M/M, Secret Relationship, courting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-08
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-07 07:45:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_stone/pseuds/red_at_three
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pavel's finally met someone who doesn't just see him as cute, naive, little Ensign Chekov.  Pretty soon he's in over his head.  But when he finally decides to assert himself, it's McCoy who finds himself in the position of nervous, awkward suitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written in 2009 for a prompt on the st_xi_kink meme, which will appear at the end of the story.

Pavel is on his hands and knees on his bed and Dr. McCoy is pressed heavy and close over him, on him, against him, inside him. This is not really happening. No, it is happening. Pavel is simply having a difficult time believing that it is really, really, happening.

 

He feels the doctor pull out and then push himself, just this side of maddeningly slowly, forward again, and Pavel bites his lip to keep from whimpering too loudly and—ooooh yes yesyesyes—and even then he can’t stop himself from mumbling, almost incoherent into his pillowcase, “Fuck me fuck me fuck me—Leo-nard oooooooh.”

 

The Doctor doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t make many noises at all, just a few low, rumbling groans, but Pavel can hear him breathing heavily, that harsh hot breath against his skin. It’s almost too much but it’s not—oh—OH—“yes! yes!” he yells, “fuck me!”—oh it’s right like this, right—“HARDER”—Pavel’s hands form aching fists around the sheets—“harder yes.”

 

He shuts his eyes as tightly as he can and tries to imagine Dr. McCoy’s face, what he must look like now. He’s moving faster, and Pavel thinks he hears something like a moan escape McCoy’s lips, yes, and oh he just wants to see his face now but he’s afraid to open his eyes and afraid to move and afraid of this ending but he’s so close, too, and what does McCoy look like when he comes, now as he’s coming, his body shaky and pressed so heavy, so undeniably present, against Pavel. A sharp exhale of breath. And in that breath, it sounds like, yes, a shaky, whispered, “Pavel.”

 

His name has never sounded more dirty or more beautiful.

 

It’s almost enough to make him come right there but he doesn’t, not until he feels McCoy’s sure hand over him and—and—fuck—fuck fuck yes, yes ooooooh yes.

 

Then Leonard pulls away and they’re lying next to each other again no longer touching and it’s over.

 

*

 

He never really believed that they’d end up—well that they’d end up fucking, there’s no other word for it really, he decides later, and it’s best to be precise. He thought it might happen. He even imagined it. But he didn’t really believe it would go so far. It was—he leans back in his chair and bites his lip and thinks it through properly—it was as if he’d stepped onto a path, and even though he knew exactly where that path would lead if he didn’t turn off of it eventually, he just kept on taking another step and another step because that end seemed so far away, and just one more step could never hurt.

 

Before Dr. McCoy his life had been quite simple. Everyone on the ship saw him as just a kid, cute little Pavel Chekov, harmless and nonthreatening. And it had annoyed him at first, until he learned how to take advantage of it. A casually suggestive comment here, some low key flirting there—just enough to make his fellow crewmembers a bit surprised or embarrassed. No one knew quite how to respond to him; he was never obvious enough to warrant a gentle let-down, never invested enough to be hurt that a let down was what the other person was looking for. It was all a game, anyway.

 

Until he tried to play with Dr. McCoy. Then suddenly all his too long touches were met with a knowing smirk that twisted him up inside, all his suggestive comments were returned, and sometimes on the bridge or in the mess or in the hallways he’d notice the Doctor looking at him. He’d meet McCoy’s gaze just to see if he flinched, but McCoy never turned away.

 

“Do you know what you’re doing, Chekov?” McCoy had asked him one day, as he bandaged Pavel’s arm. At first, Pavel thought the Doctor was referring to his work on the ship, always unsurpassed while on the Enterprise herself, though slightly less stellar while on away missions. This time he’d hurt his arm in an avoidable slide down a rocky mountainside.

 

Then he glanced up and met the Doctor’s stare and realized he was talking about something else altogether.

 

And he felt his heart beat a bit faster and his stomach twist in that painful wonderful familiar-by-now way and he knew, first, that he had no idea what he was doing, and second, that he wanted Dr. Leonard McCoy, wanted every last grumpy, grumbling, pessimistic, stubborn, exasperated, overworked, inch of him, like he’d never wanted anyone before in his life. It was a burning fire of lust he felt and he hoped the Doctor could see it in him.

 

He lied and said, “Of course Dr. McCoy, I know exactly what I am doing.”

 

*

 

Dr. McCoy leaves before Pavel falls asleep and by the next morning, it’s almost as if he had never been there at all. Pavel draws out his morning routine, takes an extra long shower, changes all the sheets on his bed, and the first half of the day slips away. Then he’s stuck on the bridge for a long afternoon shift, and Hikaru drags him off to dinner afterwards before he can protest. Between this and that and the other, the whole day goes by and he doesn’t see the Doctor even once. Not even in passing. He’s not sure if he’s disappointed or relieved.

 

*

 

They see each other again only two days later, on the bridge, when the Captain directs Chekov to answer the Doctor’s questions on the planet they are currently orbiting, while the Captain himself confers with Mr. Spock at the First Officer’s station. Pavel tries his best to be professional, and so, he assumes, does Dr. McCoy, who barely gives him a glance through their entire conversation. Pavel wishes he had some sort of signal, one that only they two knew, that he could slip into the conversation somehow. Something that meant, Let’s talk later or even just, I’ve been thinking about you.

 

The truth is he doesn’t even know what he would say to McCoy if they were alone. He assumes something will come to him. But because he’s not sure it will, and because he’s nervous, and because he’s somehow found himself waiting for the Doctor to make the next move and he’s not, not even a little, he doesn’t seek McCoy out. He doesn’t go to sick bay or drop by his office or make an effort to catch him alone in the turbo lift. He likes to tell himself that the Doctor is just trying to be professional, just trying to follow regulations when on duty. And it doesn’t matter that he never seemed to care about regulations in the past, not through four months of careful, subtle, frustrating, breath catching flirting. Because it’s true things are different now. That doesn’t mean it’s over. That doesn’t mean they’ve reached the end of the path, nowhere else now to go.

 

*

 

That weekend Pavel gets drunk with Mr. Scott in his office off the engineering wing. When he gets back to his quarters it’s late and Dr. McCoy is waiting outside the door. He’s standing with his back to Pavel, standing stiff and still like he’s completely engrossed in his own thoughts, and he doesn’t notice Pavel at all until he’s right behind him. Pavel feels like he should probably be pretty nervous now but he’s so drunk he finds he can’t care enough to be nervous anymore, so he just taps the Doctor casually on the back and says, “If you will excuse me, Doctor, I would like to open the door to my room now.”

 

McCoy jumps, startled, and turns to face Pavel properly. He gives him a close, scrutinizing look before he says anything. Then he accuses Pavel of being drunk.

 

“Why yes Doctor I am VERY drunk!” he answers, vaguely aware that he’s being unnecessarily loud, but the hallway’s deserted and anyway, what’s the point of being drunk if one can’t be loud? So he doesn’t bother to lower his voice as he asks, “Are you here to fuck me again?”

 

McCoy reaches out like he wants to slap his hand over Pavel’s mouth but he stops himself, and just shushes him instead. It hurts a little, hurts his pride, but he doesn’t say anything. He just glares at McCoy for a second, keys in the code to his door, and watches it slide open.

 

“I’m surprised you even remembered that in your state,” McCoy mutters behind him, following Pavel in.

 

“Maybe I am not that drunk,” he starts to answer, and then, in an unfortunate bit of timing, bangs loudly into his own desk and almost falls over.

 

“‘Not that drunk’ my ass,” McCoy says, as he holds Pavel up. He holds on for just a moment too long, and when Pavel straightens up properly, or as properly as he can, he’s rather pleased to note the Doctor is blushing a little.

 

“So why are you here?” he asks, in what he hopes is his best coolly discerning voice.

 

“Originally?” McCoy answers. “To see you. But now I think it’s better if I just help you get into bed so you can sleep this off.”

 

That is not good. To see is so vague. It tells him nothing. And now the Doctor is looking at him with a very funny, almost worried expression on his face, and also the room is kind of tippy again. Ooooh it’s been a long time since that happened. Suddenly he’s in McCoy’s arms again but that is probably just because his legs don’t seem to be working too well anymore.

 

So he lets McCoy do what he wants: lets him help Pavel out of his boots and then out of his uniform trousers and yellow shirt. He lets him turn down the covers of the bed and slip Pavel under them. He lets him turn down the lights till there’s only enough light to let McCoy see his way out. But just as the Doctor’s at the door Pavel calls out to him again, more sleepy than anything by now, and tells him to wait. And he does. Which for some reason makes Pavel very happy though he’s in no position to analyze.

 

“What?” McCoy asks.

 

“I would have let you,” he says. “If you had come here to fuck me, I would have let you.”

 

McCoy just scoffs. “I don’t take advantage of people when they’re drunk,” he says, like he’s insulted that anyone would suggest otherwise, and the door shuts with a mechanical whoosh behind him before Pavel can figure out how to say that that’s not exactly what he meant.

 

*

 

He wakes up the next morning confused and hungover. He remembers every minute of the night before though, every last embarrassing second, and as he goes over it all again he finds he has to bury his head under both his pillows just to stand it.

 

*

 

He walks over to sick bay just so he can tell Dr. McCoy thank you, but when the Doctor doesn’t ask him if he’s okay, doesn’t acknowledge at all that they even saw each other the night before, he decides it’s better to pretend he just came to pick up some painkillers for his headache and then leave as quickly as he can.

 

*

 

The turbolift stops at level six and Dr. McCoy steps on, with nothing but a curt nod in Pavel’s direction because, of course, they are just colleagues. Pavel’s trained himself by now to think of them that way again, and he’s even started to feel foolish that he ever thought one night would change that. “You are just a naïve boy, Pavel,” he tells himself, “and this is why everyone treats you the way that they do.”

 

The Doctor steps off again at level three, but Pavel has business on the first level and stays on. The lift bumps a little as it stops, and just before the doors open, McCoy asks, “Big plans for your Friday night, Ensign?”

 

“No, Doctor,” he answers. “Just a quiet evening in my quarters.” This is true; he’s too nervous and surprised to come up with a lie.

 

“That’s good to know,” McCoy answers, and it almost seems like he’s smiling a little as he says it, and suddenly Pavel’s heart is beating hard again like he is a thirteen year old boy with his first crush.

 

“Perhaps I will run into you sometime,” he manages, barely, but the Doctor is already stepping into the hallway and can’t do much more than nod at him in return before the lift doors close again between them.

 

*

 

He’s not really reading the newest calculations Mr. Spock sent him that morning, but he is making a concerted effort to look at the numbers when he hears the knock on his door. He rushes to open it, then restrains himself, and waits for McCoy to knock again before he lets him in.

 

Pavel’s not sure what sort of introductory conversation he was expecting, but apparently, there is little need of one. McCoy asks him if he’s busy and he says no, then watches as the Doctor steps up quite close, no more awkward personal space between them anymore, and asks if he can stay a while then, and Pavel says, “Stay all night.” Then Leonard reaches out to curve his hand around Pavel’s cheek, brushing his thumb just so across his skin as he does, and Pavel adds—his voice, nervous, makes him sound like he’s out of breath—“if you can last that long.”

 

Leonard just laughs a little, low in his throat, and pulls Pavel’s body close with his free hand.

 

They kiss but it’s not a slow, leisurely, thing, not a kiss for its own sake. McCoy is already steering them both toward Pavel’s bed. Their legs tangle up in each other and they fall down without grace onto the pillows. The Doctor is on top of him, tongue pulsing without rhythm into his mouth, hands running down his body like he owns it and this alone makes Pavel shiver and clutch all the harder at McCoy’s back. McCoy’s mouth slides off of his, begins to kiss down his neck, licking and biting as he goes; when Pavel’s shirt gets in the way he strips it off quickly, barely a pause for the fabric to slip off between them before he throws the shirt to the floor and continues to kiss down. Pavel is more awkward as he struggles to pull off Leonard’s shirt. “S’okay,” he says finally, sitting back for a moment and pulling it off himself, and Pavel blushes a little, though it’s hard to care too much, the way Leonard begins to kiss back up to his neck, biting softly at the most sensitive spots. Pavel starts to roll his hips up gently, moving his hands all the way down Leonard’s back to grab his ass.

 

In a moment they’re kissing again, sloppy and wet and uneven. Pavel is starting to sweat and his whole body feels tense with desperation. He kisses, awkward but passionate, just wanting and not caring, filled to bursting with want, the sides of Leonard’s face and behind his ear and down the far side of his neck and over his chest, anywhere he can find skin, and everywhere he finds skin. Leonard’s hands are at the button of his trousers, and again they’re pausing just the barest few moments to discard the rest of their clothes, until Pavel’s only got one sock on and he finds himself maneuvering like an acrobat to pull it off without breaking the latest kiss. He’s so gone he doesn’t care that Leonard’s chuckling at him again. He will show him that a mouth can be used for better things than laughing.

 

*

 

Leonard kisses his shoulder, a slick press of lips against his burning skin, and Pavel clenches his fists, nails into his own skin, and what has happened, what is happening, is that everything else in every universe ceases to matter and it is only the two of them, hot and close against each other.

 

*

 

He tries to recapture that feeling, the memory of that feeling even, after Dr. McCoy leaves and he’s lying alone and vaguely sticky (he doesn’t even care) in his bed. It’s two in the morning San Francisco time, one in the afternoon at home. He closes his eyes. He tries to imagine Leonard next to him, maybe running his fingers up and down Pavel’s arm. Something small is what he wants. But he’ll take what he can get. Finally he pulls himself up and goes to take a shower.

 

*

 

He’s not surprised this time when Dr. McCoy barely nods at him in the hallway, ignores him completely on the bridge. Somehow that makes it worse, but he doesn’t press, doesn’t try to force the Doctor’s attention, doesn’t let himself get distracted when he is supposed to be working. He doesn’t stay in when he knows McCoy isn’t going to show up at his door, though whenever the Doctor asks him, casual and light in the turbo lift, about his evening’s plans, he says he doesn’t have any, even when he does.

 

One day, wandering in the jungle terrain of a newly discovered planet, he gets caught up in some sort of native plant and ends up with an embarrassing and painful rash over his face and hands. Dr. McCoy is on duty when Hikaru and Mr. Spock drag him in to sick bay. They’re called away too soon, though, Hikaru a bit reluctantly but he doesn’t have much choice, and then it’s just Pavel and the Doctor. McCoy frowns as he inspects Pavel’s skin. It’s hard to tell if he’s worried because it looks bad or just annoyed at the extra work it will take to treat a stupid young Ensign who wandered somewhere he shouldn’t have.

 

“It was an accident, Doctor,” he starts to explain but McCoy just shushes him.

 

“I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” he says, looking at the red blotches on Pavel’s cheek and forehead, avoiding even the slightest glance at his eyes. “But I can probably find something that will at least help with the pain. Might have to wait for some of it to go away on its own though…”

 

As his voice trails off Pavel finds himself thinking, though he doesn’t mean to and doesn’t want to, of McCoy’s voice as it whispered, “Pavel,” so low and sinful and gorgeous, their first night together. “Pavel,” this man had said once, this same cool and professional young Doctor whose gloved hand is now below Pavel’s chin, slowly tilting his face side to side. It is almost too much to believe.

 

*

 

Pieroshki from the replicators never taste the same as the ones his mama makes at home; still he orders them again and again, hoping this time it will be different. Hikaru is still getting his food so Pavel heads off by himself and finds an empty table for both of them near the corner of the mess. Everything considered, it has been a very good day. The last of the red splotches have finally cleared from his face, and he can actually look at himself in the mirror again without wincing; he spent the entire afternoon with Mr. Spock working through a bug in the ship’s computer system, and he was indispensable to the final clearing up of the problem; also, on his way to dinner, he ran into and had a short conversation with one of the new security officers, a twenty three year old Welsh man with a quite amazing accent, and he’s pretty sure the other guy was flirting with him.

 

Just as he is deciding that maybe this time the food is a little better, he notices Dr. McCoy and the Captain enter and join the line for food at the far end of the room. They’re having some sort of animated conversation—or at least, the Captain is animated, waving his hands around a lot; Dr. McCoy is standing still, arms crossed against his chest, letting the Captain do most of the talking. Pavel watches him and watches him and watches him, and just as he’s thinking that it probably isn’t healthy to be this interested in another person, Hikaru reappears and pulls up a chair across from Pavel.

 

“Sorry,” he grins, “the replicator got stuck again. Damn things. I feel like that happens every week, don’t you?”

 

Hikaru has not quite blocked Pavel’s view of the Doctor, but now that he’s here Pavel feels that it would be weird to stretch and twist around for a good view. He flicks his eyes back down to his dinner.

 

“Pavel? Pavel are you paying any attention to what I’m saying?”

 

“What?” he looks up again. Hikaru is frowning at him.

 

“I guess that’s a no, then. What’s up? You’ve seemed awfully distracted recently. I thought you were just embarrassed about that stuff on your face but—you look fine now, you know.”

 

This comment isn’t really helpful but Pavel knows his friend means well, so he smiles. Anyway, it is true. He has been a bit more than distracted recently. He considers for a moment, then says carefully, “Hikaru, I have a question.”

 

Hikaru stops with his fork in his salad and looks up to meet Pavel’s eyes carefully. “I know that voice,” he says, “that’s a This Is Serious voice. Is something wrong?”

 

“No, no,” he assures Hikaru, shaking his head emphatically. “I just have a question. That is all.”

 

“So? Go ahead,” Hikaru waves him on with his fork, still frowning a little.

 

Pavel takes a breath first, then starts, trying to pick his words carefully. “When two people are…sleeping together….often—that is, regularly…but they are not in a relationship…what is—is there a word for—”

 

“Pavel, do you have a fuck buddy?” Hikaru interrupts. He sounds almost excited. Pavel blushes and looks down at his pieroshki again pointedly.

 

“Not so loud, Hikaru, please,” he says quietly.

 

“What? Oh, sorry,” he answers, and brings the volume of his voice down appropriately. “So do you?” Something on his face, or maybe just the fact that he won’t meet Hikaru’s eyes, is all the answer he needs. “Who is it?” he asks, still much too excited for Pavel’s liking. “It’s not that blonde girl from engineering that Scotty introduced us to at the Christmas party, is it? I always liked her.”

 

“It is not her, Hikaru,” Pavel says, his voice almost a whisper, barely moving his mouth as he speaks and the tips of his ears burning. “I do not want to talk about who it is. I just want to know vat this means, this word ‘fuck buddies.’”

 

“Well, it’s what you just said. It’s what it sounds like,” Hikaru tells him, controlling his voice better this time, perhaps aware that this is not, and is not going to become, a fun conversation. “Just two people who want to have sex with each other but don’t want the strings of a relationship.” Pavel doesn’t say anything in response for a while, doesn’t even look up, and finally Hikaru asks, “Pavel?” and reaches his hand across the table. He pats Pavel’s arm softly, then lets his hand rest there. It is a comforting, gentle touch and Pavel appreciates the small gesture more than he can put into words. Finally, he looks up and meets Hikaru’s eye again.

 

“Pavel,” Hikaru says again, “this person you’re with…you really care about them, don’t you?”

 

Pavel gets the feeling that this is not exactly what Hikaru wants to say. But he just nods. “These pieroshki,” he says, “they are nothing like vat my mama cooks at home.”

 

“I know what you mean,” Hikaru answers, taking his hand from Pavel’s arm and giving his own food a frown.

 

*

 

Hikaru convinces him to talk to “whoever this person is,” as he puts it, and explain what he wants. The night before Pavel is nervous. He lies awake for hours with the lights off and the ship quiet around him, missing the sound of traffic outside his window at home. He hasn’t felt homesick like this since his first month at the Academy. It is a strange feeling.

 

By the time he walks into sick bay the next afternoon, though, all he feels is own anger. It fills him with something like self-confidence, or at least determination, and the feelings is so intoxicating that he doesn’t hesitate, just strides through the halls and right to Dr. McCoy’s office without answering anyone’s questions.

 

McCoy is at his desk, recording his log. Pavel waits in the doorway, trying not to lose all his nerve at the last minute; McCoy notices him, raising his eyebrows only briefly before turning his back to him to finish what he is doing. After he turns the recorder off he turns back around properly.

 

“Was there something you wanted, Ensign?” he asks.

 

“Yes.” He steps fully into the room and checks quickly behind him to make sure there is no one within listening range out in the hall. “I am here because I want to talk about us,” he announces.

 

For a moment, just a moment but Pavel notices, Dr. McCoy looks nervous. Then he pulls himself together again and says, “I don’t think this is the best time, Ensign. I’m still on duty.”

 

“This will not take long,” Pavel insists. He doesn’t say it, but he’s thinking that if he doesn’t make his demand now he never will. He takes one deep breath, then another.

 

“Well, what is it?” McCoy prods.

 

“I know that you like to act as if we were nothing but…but acquaintances when we meet outside of my room,” he starts finally. He tries to stand up as straight as he can and keep his hands locked behind his back. “But that is not all that we are, and if you will not acknowledge tht…” he pauses, and takes another big breath so that he can finally say it: “Then I do not want to see you again.”

 

The Doctor just looks at him, unreadable expression on his face. Pavel waits, and waits; he finds he’s forgotten how to breathe, he’s so nervous.

 

But all McCoy says, when he finally finds something to say, is, “Come to my quarters tonight and we can talk about this then. I really can’t right now.”

 

“No, but you can,” Pavel insists, jumping around to the front of McCoy’s desk when he tries to turn away from him. “It is really very simple, Doctor. There is nothing to discuss. Only something you can tell me or something you cannot.”

 

McCoy’s eyes narrow and Pavel watches his hands clench and unclench, quick, against the table. He stares at Pavel like a stare could break him. Then he asks, “What do you want me to tell you, Ensign? What do you want me to do?” He speaks as if he were calling a bluff. Pavel puts his hands flat on the table and leans in.

 

“Just as I said, Doctor. Tell me that you will be in a real relationship wit me. Tell me that we are not only about sex.”

 

Again he waits. As he watches, Dr. McCoy’s face softens, and he bites his lip and looks at Pavel and instead of seeming angry, mostly now he just looks sorry. He looks sorry for Pavel. This is somehow worse than seeing him angry because before he could pretend to hate him, and now he’s just reminded of all the reasons he feels so empty and alone when the Doctor leaves his room in the middle of the night. Pavel finds he can’t keep his face impassive either, anymore.

 

The moment stretches and then breaks, and then McCoy turns away from him again; for a second or two his face is hidden and then he looks back and it’s hard and cruel again like Pavel’s never seen it before. “A relationship between us would be impossible, Ensign. I thought you understood that.”

 

He speaks like the conversation is over, but Pavel follows him around his desk again, so he’s standing between the Doctor’s chair and the door. “Why?” he demands.

 

“Because we are,” he hesitates, frustrated. “Because we’re incompatible.”

 

“Incompatible? Like I am not good enough for you?” He asks this and his voice gets a bit high and almost screechy.

 

“Hey, now I didn’t say that,” McCoy bites back. “Don’t put words in my mouth. You’re nineteen, Chekov, and I’m thirty-three and—”

 

“Oh so this is about age?” His voice is much too loud this time and McCoy shushes him but he doesn’t care. He just takes a step forward, closes that awful void of space between them, and asks, his voice low and trembling now, accusing, “Tell me why it is not okay for someone your age to date a teenager but it is perfectly acceptable to fuck him?”

 

McCoy’s face is red and he looks, for just a second, like he might reach out and slap Pavel right then, or maybe even punch him, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything, just grips the arms of his chair until his knuckles turn white. Pavel can see a tick in his jaw where he’s grinding his teeth shut.

 

He steps forward again, and leans forward over McCoy with his own hands on the arms of the Doctor’s chair. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing anymore, doesn’t feel like he’s controlling his own actions or devising his own words. He’s just running with each impulse, doing what he damn feels like, whatever seems right in the moment. He’s closer to McCoy than they’ve ever been outside the safety of his quarters.

 

“Do you remember,” he asks now, “that night I was drunk, and I told you I would let you fuck me if you wanted to? You said you did not take advantage of drunk people. Well maybe I have not been drunk during any of our encounters, but Dr. McCoy you have still been taking advantage of me.”

 

McCoy seems scared at first, for a few seconds, or maybe guilty, but with Pavel still leaning close over him he masks his face yet again and insists, “Everything between us was consensual, Chekov, don’t try to tell me it wasn’t.”

 

“I am not saying it was not consensual,” Pavel answers, but that’s all he answers. He’ s tired of this. He has all the answer he needs and he knows his control will crack any second so he straightens again and begins to move back toward the door. McCoy doesn’t say anything more, doesn’t try to argue or stop him. But still Pavel wants to make everything clear so before he leaves he turns around again and says, “Please do not come to my room again, Doctor. I am busy for the next four years.”

 

*

 

His legs take him all the way back to his quarters before they give out and he’s crumpled down on the floor of his room, back against the door. He cries but not because he’s upset, or angry, or because he regrets anything. He’s just shaking all over from nerves, all of him so tense during that conversation and now it’s all over and there’s nothing else to do but let it out. It’s over. And it’s better this way, it is, but he still feels terrible, and he wishes he could lie to himself and say he has no idea why.


	2. Chapter 2

The new security officer’s name is Brenin and he’s a full head taller than Pavel when they’re standing. The height difference isn’t as obvious when they sit down next to each other in the mess for lunch. Brenin is telling Pavel about his life before Starfleet; he mentions an ex-boyfriend a bit tentatively, sneaking a glance over at Pavel to gauge his reaction. Pavel just smiles and tries to look reassuring. “Yes,” he says, “I had a similar experience with an ex at the Academy. He told me that we would always be friends and then refused to speak to me after the breakup.”

In the past Pavel has always found the security officers to be, at best, a bit dim, and at their worst to be rough bullies. But Brenin is almost bashful, blushing down into his potatoes. He asks Pavel awkwardly if he’s single now.

Dr. McCoy is sitting two tables over with Mr. Spock and the Captain. Pavel, as attuned to him as ever, knows the Doctor hasn’t glanced at him even once the entire meal. He’s ignoring him. But of course he has always been very good at that. Perhaps he does not even have, has never even had, to try.

“Yes,” Pavel answers, tilting his head just so to seek out Brenin’s eyes. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” Brenin answers, his cheeks the slightest shade of pink. “Got my eye on someone, though…”

Pavel smiles again, laughs the slightest, smallest laugh under his breath. He moves his foot under the table so his boot touches Brenin’s boot and he waits for Brenin to ask him out properly, which he does, before lunch is even over.

* 

Brenin doesn’t know much about navigation, the mechanics of transporters, or advanced calculus problems, but he’ll let Pavel talk about all of these things as they lounge together in the corner of the rec room or eat late dinners in the practically-deserted mess. In return Brenin tells Pavel all the Enterprise’s secrets. He shows Pavel her little used rooms, the back passages that even some of the highest ranking officers don’t know about. At first Pavel thinks they’ll use these new found hiding places for some fumbled groping in those spare moments after his shift ends and before Brenin’s begins, but Brenin isn’t the quickie in an abandoned closet sort. He’s more of a romantic: hand holding in the hallways, long and slow and careful kisses, endearments.

They date for five weeks before they sleep together. Brenin switches his shift with another officer to get the evening off. He cooks Pavel dinner the old fashioned way. He tells Pavel exactly how he feels about him, and it’s more than Pavel feels, but he carefully avoids saying so.

* 

He still sees Dr. McCoy, on the bridge or in sick bay or in the hallways; sometimes they end up in the same party for away missions. They might exchange a hello, but more often than not they just nod at each other. Like there was never anything between them. One evening Pavel and Brenin step onto a turbo lift that’s already transporting Dr. McCoy to level five, and when it gets stuck between levels they’re all trapped there together for twenty minutes, McCoy glaring at the corner like he doesn’t notice them there, Pavel holding tight to Brenin’s hand, complaining with him casually about the stupid broken down lift, pretending he doesn’t notice the Doctor’s disgusted sighs.

It’s not like how it used to be. If anything, some days, it feels like the beginning, when Pavel was just stumbling along blindly, not sure what each glance and each touch and each comment would add to but still somehow curious to see, needing to see. He finds McCoy staring at him again. He catches the Doctor’s eye on him from his post next to the Captain’s chair, from his table across the mess, but he always looks away just as Pavel meets his eye.

* 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Pavel asks, following Brenin a bit reluctantly onto the observation deck.

“Oh, look who’s nervous now,” Brenin teases back. “I thought you’d get off on something a little more risky. Not that it’s really so much of a risk,” he adds, turning to stare at the wide black expanse of space that stretches out on either side of them through the windows. “It’s the middle of the night. The only people who are up are the ones on duty and they all have jobs to do. Everyone else is asleep. The chances of anyone catching us are miniscule.”

Pavel sighs, but then nods like he’s at least trying to believe that this is going to be okay. “I’ve,” he starts, staring at the back of Brenin’s shirt where it’s stretched between his shoulder blades, Brenin’s arms crossed against his chest and pulling the fabric at both ends, “I’ve never had sex in a public place before.”

“Well this isn’t exactly a public place,” Brenin corrects, turning back to face him. “There’s no one here but us.” Then he gives Pavel his best sexy smile, and in that moment he looks so perfect, handsome and tall and trustworthy and so in love with Pavel his whole face shines with it and Pavel just wants him. He wants Brenin to fuck him against the backdrop of neverending space and he would say as much, except that it seems like a much better idea just to show him.

Brenin huffs like all the wind is knocked out of him when Pavel practically jumps on him, but he recovers quickly from his surprise, and soon he’s kissing back, his tongue running over Pavel’s, hands slipping down to grip Pavel close against him by the waist.

He’s stretched out long beneath Brenin across a string of observation deck chairs when he first hears the footsteps. “Wait, wait,” he manages. He pushes a bit at Brenin’s chest so that he’ll stop biting in just that perfect way at his favorite spot on Pavel’s neck.

“What?” Brenin asks, shifting to meet Pavel’s eyes. He looks more confused than anything, hair tousled and face flushed and in no state to be found by whoever is definitely approaching the door now.

“You do not hear that?”

Brenin shakes his head, still confused. Then his expression changes, he looks to the door and back at Pavel; he hears it too. “Let’s go,” he says, pulling himself up and grabbing Pavel’s wrist before he can protest. The problem is that there isn’t anywhere to go, except through the door, which would mean running into whoever-it-is and which would not really help them escape unnoticed.

“I cannot believe this, I cannot believe this, I cannot believe this,” Pavel whispers over and over as Brenin pulls him around a corner and tells him to hush. They flatten themselves as well as they can against the wall and try not to breathe. Pavel’s pretty sure whoever is coming will be able to hear his heart, though, it’s beating so hard, for so many reasons.

The door of the observation deck opens with a whoosh and two distinct sets of footsteps walk in. Pavel wishes he could snap something about perfectly safe not public at all over at Brenin but the best he can do is to shoot him a glare, which Brenin returns with his best innocent, apologetic face.

He’s thinking that at least it can’t get any worse, but that’s not a very good thought to have because as soon he has it, it does. It gets worse. The footsteps stop, and there’s a pause, just Pavel’s heart and Brenin’s heart and they’re both trying not to breathe, and then a very familiar voice says, “You don’t have to do this, you know, Jim.”

Pavel closes his eyes and tries to take very big, very quiet breaths.

“It’s nothing, Bones, really,” the Captain’s voice answers. “You stayed up with me plenty of nights when I had insomnia at the Academy. I’m just paying back the favor now.”

There’s another patch of silence after this exchange—Pavel thinks he can hear Dr. McCoy grumbling something but it’s hard to tell—and then the Captain’s voice again, quieter this time but still intelligible, asks, “So do you want to talk about it?”

“Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a sixteen year old girl,” McCoy scoffs in answer. “No, I do not want to sit around with my best friend forever and talk about my feelings. It’s—”

“Embarrassing?”

The Doctor doesn’t answer. Pavel closes his eyes. He can’t believe he’s hearing this, can’t believe that Leonard McCoy is right around the corner, so bothered by something he can’t even sleep and maybe, maybe—no, he’s sure it must be something else.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Bones,” the Captain is saying. “How many times did you walk in on me in a compromising position at the Academy? And do you remember that time you treated me for that weird STD that turned my dick blue? And it was just last week that you were giving me stuff for those awkwardly placed scratches.”

“Damn Vulcan,” McCoy interjects, under his breath but Pavel picks it up anyway. Apparently so does Brenin; when Pavel sneaks a glance at him he sees his eyes have gone completely round, though perhaps that’s just because he’s thinking that he’ll never be able to look at his Captain quite the same way again.

“The point is,” Kirk continues, “that there is no more room for embarrassment between us. So go ahead. Act like a sixteen year old girl. Later we can gossip about the rest of the crew and, oh I don’t know, braid each other’s hair or something. Right now you talk about your feelings.”

Pavel can’t see, and he’s too afraid to look, too afraid to move, but he’s sure McCoy must be glaring at the Captain right now.

“I think all we’ve proven is that you have no shame,” McCoy grumbles. “And I don’t—” he cuts himself off and lowers his voice, aware that it was growing loud with emotion, “I don’t want to discuss this.”

Pavel chances another glance at Brenin. The expression on his face is clearly one of curiosity, but also complete incomprehension, and before he can stop himself from thinking it Pavel is wishing that Brenin was anywhere else on the ship but here with him in this room. Brenin flicks his eyes over to where the Doctor and the Captain are standing, out of sight, and raises his eyebrows. Pavel shrugs back.

Kirk’s voice is more understanding, less upbeat and joking, now, more like it was when he first asked the Doctor if he wanted to talk. “I get it,” he’s saying, “I do. You fell for someone you didn’t mean to. I know what that’s like.” 

He pauses again and waits for McCoy to answer but he doesn’t, and in that silence Pavel shuts his eyes tight again and tries to calm down his breathing so Brenin won’t suspect that on the inside, he’s so scared and excited and tense and ecstatic and miserable that he feels about ready to burst. You fell for, fell for, fell for, echoes in his ears. What does that mean anyway, does that mean love?

“To be honest, I think you’re just overcomplicating things,” Kirk continues. “If this were just about losing a reliable fuck buddy then you could find somebody else. And don’t give me that look because you know you could find somebody—hell, I’d volunteer myself if I weren’t already taken. My point is, you’re not awake at completely indecent hours because you’re upset you’re not getting any anymore. You’re awake because you miss him, so man up, stop moping—”

“I don’t mope.”

“—and win him back.”

McCoy snorts. Pavel clenches his hands into fists and waits to spontaneously combust. “Too late anyway,” the Doctor says. “He’s found someone else.”

The Captain just laughs at that one like it’s a damn good joke, then tells McCoy that he’s steering him back to his quarters now so maybe he’ll dream up some sort of great winning-his-boy-back plan, and not five minutes later the coast is clear and Brenin makes a dramatic show of releasing his held breath and stumbling around over himself to apologize even though, really, who could ever have foreseen that.

“No one could,” Pavel reassures him, staring more at the closed door of the observation deck than at Brenin. “It was completely unexpected.”

*

At first he’s ecstatic. He lies on his back in bed and grins up at his ceiling so hard his face hurts, and he imagines everything he’ll say when Leonard comes back to him and everything he’ll do, every inch of skin he’ll touch and kiss, what those hands will feel like running down his body again.

His euphoria doesn’t last long, though. He remembers Brenin. He remembers hands locked together over the mess hall table all through dinner and his head on Brenin’s lap as he stretches out on a rec room couch for a lazy afternoon off and the way Brenin’s face always lights up when he runs into him unexpectedly in the hall. The Doctor has never done these things. And one overheard conversation in the middle of the night does not change what Pavel told him two months ago. He cannot be used and thrown aside.

“Let him try to win me back,” he tells his ceiling. “Let him try as hard as he can and just see if he succeeds.”


	3. Chapter 3

The sick bay’s main computer is housed in a small room off the CMO’s office, inaccessible to all but a few specially authorized personnel. Pavel flashes his identification to the doctor on duty and is let in. McCoy isn’t in his office when Pavel walks through, and he’s glad of this, glad and disappointed both, relieved that he can set about his job without distraction, let down that he has carefully prepared himself for an encounter that will not occur.

The last officer to update the databases has made a fine mess of them and soon all Pavel’s thinking about is untangling the knots in the system as carefully as he can. He doesn’t want to make any mistakes. But if he’s nervous at first to do everything just so, the feeling falls away quickly; his mind slips with ease into his task and he loses himself in it.

It takes almost four hours and by then he’s exhausted, barely aware where he’s going, and not surprised that he runs into someone not halfway through the Doctor’s office. He’s a bit more surprised to see that the person he’s run into is the Doctor himself. McCoy stops him with two hands to his arms. “Easy, Ensign,” he says, not unkindly, the sound of a smile in his voice.

Pavel looks up. McCoy is staring down at him, and the expression on his face is still amused. “What are you doing here?” Pavel asks, before he can stop himself, and a blush rises to his cheeks.

“It’s my office,” McCoy answers. He’s not smiling anymore, not really, his face relaxing again into a neutral expression. And he’s still holding on to Pavel’s arms. This touch is totally unnecessary, and it’s keeping their bodies much too close. “What are you doing here?”

“I was assigned to work on the sick bay computer,” he answers, trying to keep his voice neutral and his gaze somewhere safe, though even the skin of McCoy’s neck makes his thoughts wander inappropriately when they’re this close. “I have just finished.”

McCoy makes a low, quiet noise of assent, an “okay” rumble deep in his throat, and then he moves his left hand from Pavel’s arm to place two fingers beneath his chin and tilt his head up. Nowhere to look but McCoy’s eyes now, and there’s a familiar look in them that thumps deep in Pavel’s chest. “Can’t say I’m not glad to see you,” McCoy says. His right hand slips down Pavel’s arm and then hooks around his waist. Pavel takes the tiniest of steps forward. He takes a great breath, chest pressing now against McCoy’s.

He turns his face away so Leonard can’t try to kiss him, and presses his cheek against Leonard’s chest. He moves his own arms to wrap tight around the other’s body, and gives him one long hug. He hopes his gesture is a surprise, can’t help but think it is; the Doctor doesn’t say a word for several long moments.

Finally he tries to whisper, “Chekov,” but Pavel cuts him off.

“Dr. McCoy,” he says, trying for his best note of finality, uncurling his arms as he speaks and stepping away again. He puts his hands at the Doctor’s elbows, then slips them down to cover the Doctor’s hands and pull them from his body. “It is too late. I have a boyfriend. Understand…”

What he wants to say is that this game he had, the Doctor ruined it, and now there’s no playing, no easy the end and everything back to normal, fine. But it’s a not a lesson the Doctor needs. McCoy looks like he’s about to apologize, but he just nods, and Pavel lets his hands go.

* 

That night Brenin cancels their dinner plans, apologizing repeatedly as he does. Pavel doesn’t tell him that he’d rather be alone, anyway. He sneaks his dinner back to his room to eat and with each bite he changes his mind, trying to decide if the meeting in McCoy’s office was planned or accidental, if even the Doctor knew what he was doing when he held Pavel so close.

_He was trying to tell you he misses you,_ he tells himself.

_He was trying to seduce you because he thinks you are that easy._

The more he thinks the more tangled it seems, and eventually he becomes sick of his own winding arguments and decides to go to sleep early.

* 

_“All crewmembers assigned to the Zortex II landing party report to sickbay immediately. You know who you are. If you don’t know who you are, I repeat: Zortex II landing party members Commander Spock, Lieutenant Uhura, Lieutenant Sulu, Lieutenant Johansaan, Ensign Michaels, and Ensign Chekov are to report to sickbay immediately. Kirk out.”_

Pavel is in the engineering room, arguing the finer points of trans-warp beaming theory, when he hears the message. He shoots a confused look at Mr. Scott but he only shrugs his shoulders. Messages like that and it’s hard not to be nervous, his stomach twisting a bit as he hurries through the halls to sick bay. He’s the first of the landing party to arrive and as he scans his eyes across the room the first person they meet is Dr. McCoy. He’s standing off to the side frowning down at something on his PADD but he seems to sense Pavel’s gaze on him because he looks up almost immediately, and before Nurse Chapel, just behind him, can motion Pavel over, he tells her, “I got this one, Nurse.” He nods once at Pavel before turning back to whatever he was studying. Pavel takes that as the only signal he’ll get to come over. When he reaches the bio bed the Doctor nods again, once, in its direction, and Pavel lifts himself up onto its edge.

“What is going on, Doctor?” he asks, trying to sound as calm as he can; McCoy is turned more away from him than toward, and he’s set down the datapad now to mess around with something that Pavel can only half see. “We have not even beamed down yet—”

“And you’re not going to, until you’re vaccinated against the flu strain that’s been taking out whole villages planetside,” McCoy finishes grimly. When Pavel doesn’t answer he glances over his shoulder, and his expression softens a little at the worry and confusion in Pavel’s face. “We’ve been getting new reports—apparently there’s an epidemic out in the countryside that the city officials have been reluctant to tell us about. We have a vaccine—not very much but at least enough for the landing party, for now—but it’s considered so rare nowadays that it’s not part of the standard set of inoculations given to starship crews before takeoff.” He sounds not a little bitter about this, so Pavel is silent, unquestioning, watching McCoy’s back as he finishes preparing the syringe.

When he turns around again Pavel is staring at him blankly. McCoy frowns, heavy lines creasing between his eyes, and asks, “There a problem, Ensign?”

“Um—no.” Pavel shakes his head quickly as if to wake himself up and repeats himself, more emphatically this time, “No.” He starts to roll up his shirtsleeves, first the yellow overshirt and then the black sleeve underneath. “It is just that I,” he hesitates for a moment, carefully looking down at his arm and not at McCoy’s face. “It is just that I have always been somewhat afraid of needles.” He looks up for a moment, then tries to smile. “I know zat is kind of stupid.”

“It’s a common fear,” McCoy answers, his voice less reassuring than matter of fact. “The best thing to do,” he tells Pavel seriously, glancing up at him for just a moment from where he is preparing his arm, “is to think of something else. For example, you could think about me.”

“About you, Doctor?”

“Yes.”

Pavel can’t see McCoy’s face, not from his current angle and with the way McCoy is focused down on Pavel’s arm. So he stares instead at the part in his hair, focuses on the surprisingly gentle touch on his skin, and listens as the Doctor continues.

“I miss you, Chekov. I…” he pauses for a moment, and Pavel, sure that this is where the needle part comes in, averts his face completely and stares off at the other side of the room, where Nurse Chapel is talking to Hikaru, newly arrived and pushing up his own shirtsleeve. But Pavel doesn’t feel a thing. Still waiting, he hears McCoy’s voice pick up again, a steady and professional voice speaking nervous and private words. “I don’t really know what I’m doing here,” he’s saying. “I’m not good at the grand winning back gesture or anything.”

_maybe you’ll dream up some sort of great winning-your-boy-back plan_

Pavel swallows heavily.

“And I don’t know what you want,” McCoy continues.

“Yes you do,” Pavel answers, turning back in the Doctor’s direction again. His voice is hard now, low but in control. “I told you, that day in your office. Now are you going to vaccinate me or not?”

McCoy straightens and sets the empty syringe aside. When he looks at Pavel it is like he is looking at a stranger. “Already did,” he answers, voice familiar and professional again. “Now out of my sickbay so I can get back to my work.”

* 

Brenin stretches his toes all the way to the end of the bed and sighs to fill his lungs as wide as they’ll go. Pavel wraps his arm across his man’s stomach and then moves his body close against his and rests his head on his chest. The lights are still on full so he dims them to fifty percent, then closes his eyes. He can hear Brenin’s heart beating.

The moment is quiet and still, tender even, that would be a good word, the kind of moment he can curl into and in which he can truly, finally rest. He feels the frantic pace of his thoughts slow and a languor comes over him that makes his mouth curl up into a smile. He can feel Brenin’s fingers running absently through his hair. It’s not the kind of moment for words but somehow, this time, he feels like he needs words, needs to say something, needs to express something that Brenin probably thinks he already knows.

“I love that I can trust you,” he says finally, quietly. His voice is rough from overuse but still well suited to the shadowy evening feel of the room. “I love that…that you are still here.” At the last word, he kisses the inner curve of one rib softly.

Brenin’s hand slides down to Pavel’s neck and starts to carefully massage his skin. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“No,” Pavel corrects, closing his eyes again to the feel of Brenin’s touch. “I mean that you are still here, in this room with me, in this moment.”

“Yeah of course.” A hint of confusion bleeds into his voice. “Where else would I be?”

Pavel wants to ask, _Do you miss him? That ex boyfriend? The first great love of your life? The one you left to come to San Francisco, to find your way to me?_ But he doesn’t. He can’t. Such questions are not meant for such times. He closes his eyes tighter against his own wandering thoughts.

* 

“Morning, Ensign,” Dr. McCoy greets him, as cheerfully as he greets anyone, and Pavel turns, startled. It’s too early for him to bother to hide his surprise. McCoy is standing behind him with his arms crossed, tilting slightly to the side to count the number of people between him and the replicators. He doesn’t seem too interested in Pavel, even though he’s still not returned the greeting.

“Dr. McCoy,” he says finally, “I did not know you ate breakfast.”

Only after he says it does the comment start to sound stupid, and he curses this man who can still twist his tongue after all that has happened.

“I mean,” he tries again, “I never see you here in the morning.”

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” the Doctor answers, which is really no answer at all, so Pavel just turns to face forward again. Lines are short at this hour and already, he’s next.

He doesn’t ask McCoy to sit with him but the Doctor follows him anyway to his usual morning table on the far left of the room. Pavel doesn’t object but he doesn’t make any effort to start conversation either. It feels like for every five minutes he spends around McCoy he spends at least twelve hours thinking about him, and it’s become a frustration he doesn’t know what to do with. He’s settled for a subtle avoidance, even now trying his best to look nowhere but down at his food.

“I was talking to Scotty,” McCoy says now, lightly, poking at his food as if, Pavel thinks quietly to himself, he wasn’t used to eating at this hour of the morning. “Yesterday. And he was telling me about that transporter upgrade you were supposed to help him with. He said you all but did it yourself before he even got there. That’s, uh…”

Pavel flicks his eyes, just for a moment, to McCoy’s face. The Doctor is looking down at his plate, and when he looks up, Pavel looks just as quickly down again, and grips his fork tightly. “That’s impressive work,” McCoy is saying. “You do really good work on this ship, Chekov.”

The words are professional, the praise of a superior officer to a younger crewmember, and even though Pavel knows already what McCoy has told him, knows his own worth and talent and his value to the Enterprise, if it had been anyone else paying him such a compliment he would have glowed inwardly with pride. But all he can focus on in this moment is the sound of McCoy’s voice and how nervous he seems. He might as well be saying, You’re looking very handsome today, Ensign. He might as well be blushing like a teenager. Pavel determines to keep his eyes down and not test his theory.

A long moment passes and then, across from him, McCoy lets out a long sigh. “Not talking to me, Ensign?” he asks gruffly.

Pavel shrugs a little, and bites his lip down at his pancakes. But he doesn’t say anything, thinking about McCoy watching him. He can hear his fingers tapping absently on the tabletop.

When the Doctor starts to speak again—“I’m trying you kn—”—Pavel interrupts him.

“Tell me about your ex-wife.”

He tilts his head up again just to see the expression on McCoy’s face, a strange mix of confused and surprised. He shakes his head, twice, as if to clear it and test his hearing, and for a moment he looks like he’ll say something else, but all he comes up with is, “What?”

Pavel shrugs and tries his best to look innocent and mildly inquiring. “She agreed to marry you,” he explains, as if this were quite obvious. “You found a way to convince her to be with you.”

McCoy’s still looking at Pavel like he thinks he might be slipping a bit into insanity, but Pavel keeps his expression set: nonthreatening, and seemingly unaware of the reason for the Doctor’s confusion. “I am serious,” he insists.

McCoy makes a show of sighing, grumbling, looking off to the side, but Pavel knows he’ll answer, and he gives him his time.

“It was different with her,” he says finally. He sounds, surprisingly, and now Pavel can’t look at him again, melancholy. Nostalgic, in his own bitter way. Pavel doesn’t want to press but McCoy continues anyway. “She was an old-fashioned Southern girl. I courted her like an old-fashioned Southern gentleman would.”

“And,” Pavel asks carefully, “what does that mean, exactly?”

McCoy looks up at him like he’s trying to gauge something in his face, but whatever he sees or doesn’t see, he answers the question. “Sappy romantic things,” he says. “I’d kiss her hand when I greeted her. We’d take long walks in the evening and stay outside watching the sunset.” He shrugs, for a moment so terribly shy all Pavel wants is to wrap his arms around him, sappy and unwanted as such a gesture would be. Then McCoy catches his eyes again, so fast Pavel doesn’t have the chance to look away, and smiles. “Nothing I think would help much now. Unless you want me to show up at your door holding a bouquet of roses?”

“No,” Pavel answers grimly, and turns his attention back resolutely to his food. Only at the last moment he flicks his eyes back up and allows himself a small grin. “I much prefer orchids.”

* 

He spends a long morning in Brenin’s quarters and doesn’t have much time to stop by his own rooms before his bridge shift starts. Even in a hurry, though, it’s hard to miss them, the bunch of orchids set down outside his door. He can’t help it; as he stoops to pick them up he’s grinning.

On closer inspection, he realizes they’re not orchids at all, but a type of strange, orange, alien flower that he’s seen growing in Hikaru’s room. He tries to picture Leonard, asking for them for some vague reason, being evasive and nervous and hiding it, tries to picture him tying the flowers up later by their stems, debating whether or not to include a card. There isn’t one, Pavel notices. He scrambles around his quarters looking for some sort of suitable container and is almost late for his shift.

*

Pavel stands as close as he dares to the edge of the lake and wishes he could take off his boots and feel the small edges of the waves against his bare skin. He knows there’ll be plenty of time for that later. And it would probably be worse to be still stuck on the ship, waiting and waiting and counting the seconds left before leave officially starts. Still it’s hard to feel too grateful that he’s being asked to work while all around him are shady trees and soft grasses and towering mountain ranges and while right in front of him is this lake, quite possibly the largest lake he has ever seen, glittering blue water beneath the sun like something out of a fairy tale.

Dr. McCoy is much more professional. He is steadfastly scanning the area, seemingly immune to its charm, all but silent this last half hour as they’ve wandered the terrain together. Pavel can’t help but be grateful for him, for his silence, for how easily he turns the other way as Pavel wanders absently and lazily through the grass. He knows he’s being somewhat unprofessional. He’s too tired, too overworked, too caught up in the excitement of a long overdue break to care.

He’s staring out at the far edge of the lake, wondering just how far it stretches and what’s on the other side, when he hears footsteps crunching behind him on the rocky slope down to the lake’s edge. He glances over at the Doctor as he comes to stand next to him, a suitable and professional distance apart. He keeps his hands crossed behind his back and his gaze to the horizon. “Enjoying the view, Ensign?” he asks casually, after a few moments.

“Very much, Dr. McCoy,” he answers. He pauses a moment, then opens his mouth to give his thanks—he’s sure McCoy’s done at least half of his work—but the Doctor cuts him off.

“Do you have any big plans for leave?” he asks.

Pavel doesn’t miss his wording, every stomach twisting meeting in the turbolift flashing through his mind again, and he turns to the Doctor and frowns. McCoy meets his eyes and for a moment he looks confused, then the memory comes back to him too and his features fall with embarrassment. He hides his face for a moment. Then he passes his hand from his forehead to his chin and tries again. “I didn’t mean it that way, Chekov. I just—I meant you’re probably looking forward to being able to spend time with Lieutenant Emerson.”

Pavel turns forward again and mimics, without realizing it, the Doctor’s own professional stance. “Not that it is any of your business, Doctor,” he says finally, stiffly, “but no. We have been assigned to different leave parties. I will not see him again until we return to the ship.”

He waits several moments for McCoy to answer and then all he has to say is, “Oh.”

There’s no reason for them to still be there, just staring out at the lake and the mountains beyond it; the sooner they return to the ship the sooner the Captain will start authorizing parties to beam down. But somehow Pavel’s in no hurry to leave. He glances over at the Doctor. His expression, what Pavel can make of it from just his profile, is unreadable. Suddenly he clears his throat. “This is also none of my business,” he says (Pavel swallows, reflexively, his own throat rather dry), “but,” he pauses again, like he might still back out from his own question. He doesn’t, as Pavel knew he wouldn’t really. “Are you happy with him, Chekov?”

Pavel turns forward again in a snap. “What do you mean?” he asks back, his voice steady, careful.

“Do you really like all of that…I don’t know, sappy romantic stuff? I see you two together sometimes. The handholding, the nicknames, the…cuddling in public—do you like all of that?”

Pavel considers lying, considers giving McCoy an unequivocal yes, saying he loves every second of it, but he can’t quite bring himself to. He knows the Doctor is waiting for his answer. When he replies he forms each word carefully, speaking more to the tallest mountain peak than to the man standing next to him. “I love knowing that he cares for me,” he says. “He is always reminding me. It is reassuring.”

McCoy doesn’t answer. Again, nothing but silence between them. And it is like someone flipped a switch inside him and for a moment, just a moment, their professional distance, their eyes set carefully ahead, their steady voices, their avoidance—even his own answer, almost like saying nothing at all, and the way that McCoy will just take it, accept it like all the answer he’ll ever get—all of this is so infuriating that Pavel just wants to scream. But the feeling passes just as quickly as it came. He takes a deep breath to calm himself and he feels better. McCoy is still not looking at him, still not answering. “Hmmm,” he says finally, but that is all.

Then he reaches for his communicator. “The Captain’s probably wondering where we are,” he says.

“Yes,” Pavel answers, and hides his disappointment even from himself.

* 

While on leave they are each assigned rooms in the only hotel in a small town not far from the giant lake where they first beamed down. Hikaru tells him that this town, all square brick buildings and narrow streets and crooked alleys, its people quiet and nervous and soft, is the biggest city on the planet. Hikaru also tells him that, at night and underground, life gets a little more exciting. Pavel doesn’t even know exactly what this means. Their first night off, he’s too tired to try and find out. He promises Hikaru he’ll go out with him another time, before they have to return to the ship, and sneaks away to his own room. The bed is much more comfortable than the one in his quarters on the Enterprise. It’s early evening yet and he doesn’t plan on going to sleep but when he opens his eyes again his room is all but dark, just the light from the planet’s two moons streaming in through his open window.

He stands up, stretches, and commands the lights to turn on, glad that for all the town’s quaint old village appearance it is well equipped with the familiar amenities of a modern society. For a few minutes he wanders the room, examining the spare pieces of furniture, taking in the view out the window, wondering what he should do now—take out some reading? try to find Hikaru? call Brenin on the _Enterprise?_ —and then, almost by chance, he notices it. A note has been slipped under his door. An old fashioned pen and paper note. He stoops to pick it up.

_Have dinner with me tomorrow,_ it says. On the two lines beneath this message are written a time, 19h00 _Enterprise_ time, and a place, the hotel’s dining room on the ground floor. The note isn’t signed but Pavel knows exactly who it’s from.

*

He considers not going. He convinces himself no fewer than eight separate times during the night and over the course of the next day that he should find some polite and tactful way out of it. But in the end he shows. The dining room, a small rectangular room whose right wall is a giant pane of glass through which one can see the beginning of a forest, is empty when he arrives. One of the tables by the window is set for two.

“Mr. Chekov?” the hotel’s manager greets him. Pavel jumps, and puts his hand up to his heart before he can help it. He didn’t even hear the man approach. He is a short, thin humanoid with faintly purple skin and impossibly long hair; like the others of the planet, he wears no shoes, and seems more to glide than to walk as he moves.

“I apologize if I startled you,” he says politely, staring at Pavel with intense round eyes. “You are Mr. Chekov?”

“Ye—yes,” Pavel answers, and waits for whatever will happen next to happen. He is more nervous than he thought he would be. The manager leads him to the one set table, then abandons him there. By the side of his empty plate is a tall glass of water, and he takes several long gulps of it, hoping it will help the dry and scratchy feeling in his throat.

He’s early, but not by very many minutes, and when Dr. McCoy appears it is already three minutes past 19h00 and Pavel doesn’t know what to say to him. So he lets the Doctor speak first and all he says, after a few strained moments of silence, is, “You’re here.”

Pavel wants to say something about the Doctor’s own late arrival but all he replies is, “Yes.” Then they’re silent again. Neither of them is in uniform; the Doctor is wearing a suit jacket, no tie, and Pavel just stares at him in the half light of the empty room and tries to remember if he has ever seen this man in civilian clothes before.

“I guess you knew it was me, then,” McCoy says, a bit hesitantly. “The note—”

“Yes,” Pavel answers. “Did you want it to be a surprise?”

“No. I didn’t think you’d come if you thought it was just some stranger asking.”

As they speak, a bit stilted and unsure, McCoy keeps his eyes carefully on Pavel’s face. Pavel wants to say something, he doesn’t even know what, just something, to break the silence that is falling a bit too comfortably now between them, to upset that steady and knowing gaze, but before he can find his voice, the manager reappears with their food. He appears from behind Pavel on his feet as silent as ever, and again he jumps, and frowns at McCoy when he laughs a bit under his breath at the reaction.

He’s about to ask if the Doctor only invited him here to mock him when he’s distracted by the sight of their food. Before him are several Russian dishes like he has not seen all in one place since before he left for the Academy. The first course is pieroshki that are, even in appearance, much closer to his mama’s than anything that’s ever come out of a ship’s replicator. “Dr. McCoy,” he starts, his voice low and quiet, more a whisper than anything, but McCoy interrupts. His own voice is nervous, more nervous than Pavel has ever heard it.

“I spent yesterday doing research. I hope it’s all right. I’ve heard the people of this planet are supposed to be really great cooks, but I don’t know if they’ve ever made these sorts of things before so they probably got it a little off—”

“Dr. McCoy.”

He looks up from where he’s been marveling at each of the dishes, and catches McCoy’s eye. A dark blush rises to the Doctor’s cheeks. “I have never heard you ramble like this before,” Pavel tells him. “It is,” he lowers his voice, and leans in as close as he can over the table, “endearing.”

“Endearing?” McCoy asks, and Pavel wishes he could tell him not to be so suspicious.

“Attractive,” he clarifies. “A new side of you. I would not want to see it everyday but…sometimes…” He reaches out with his left hand and covers McCoy’s right. McCoy moves his fingers, entangling them with Pavel’s awkwardly, and then for several long moments he just looks down, silent, at their hands lying together against the tablecloth.

It’s only when Pavel pulls his hand away to start eating that the Doctor speaks again. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t trying to interfere with you and Emerson,” he says. He sounds, Pavel notices only vaguely as he takes those first perfect bites (not quite like mama’s but so close he just wants to close his eyes and savor it)—he sounds almost angry, his tone bitter and ashamed.

Pavel glances up at him. “I know what you are doing, Doctor,” he says. “Now eat. Russian cooking is the best in the universe, you know. This is a fact.”

*

For days after he gets back to the ship he’s sick with his own guilt, a new nauseous wave of it each time Brenin smiles at him, wraps his arms around him, kisses him. He makes excuses to break dates and spends each night alone in his own quarters. He’s sure he knows why he feels this way ( _a date with another man—you held his hand, Pavel, you lead him on_ ) but when the real reason comes to him, straight shock in the middle of the night like waking from a bad dream, he realizes he’s had it wrong the whole time.

He invites Brenin to his quarters and they sit together on his bed, a decent, carefully kept space between them. Pavel does most of the talking. He’s not sure what he expected but somehow he thought Brenin would have more to say. He thought the conversation would take longer than it does. It’s not surprising, though, he realizes later, after Brenin leaves and he’s alone again. When it’s over, it’s over, and it’s pointless to dissect the reasons why.

*

Dr. McCoy stands to the far right of the turbo lift and Brenin to the far left, and Pavel’s in the middle, staring down at the toes of his boots. Brenin steps off at level four. Pavel and the Doctor continue up. Pavel lets out his breath in a long, careful, quiet sigh, even as he wills the lift to move faster.

“Well,” McCoy says to the closed lift door, “that was uncomfortable.” His eyes flick over and back. “Any particular reason he was glaring at me that entire time?”

Pavel clasps his hands behind his back and answers, as professionally as he can, “He is under the impression that I broke up with him because of you.”

“Oh?” the Doctor asks, and Pavel watches as his eyebrows rise and he starts to smile. When Pavel doesn’t smile back he looks away, coughs, and rearranges his face into a more neutral expression.

“He is wrong, of course,” Pavel continues neutrally. “There is nothing between us. There cannot be.” He looks over at McCoy, standing in the corner of the lift, arms crossed against his chest, staring at Pavel steadily. “It is like you said, in your office,” Pavel says. “Isn’t it?”

*

For a moment, his body nothing but particles, he’s deaf. Then he rematerializes, safe on his own two feet again, on the transporter pad on the _Enterprise_ , and the first thing he hears is a long, drawn out sigh, almost a groan, at his left. “Well that was brutal,” the Captain says, and clomps down off the platform tiredly. Pavel’s in no hurry to disagree. No one’s injured but he’s a bit more bruised than he was this morning and even a simple conversation with that particular High Council was more difficult than pulling teeth, more painful than having one’s own teeth pulled.

“I think that in honor of that bit of diplomatic success—and also in honor of an overworked and overtired crew not accidentally destroying my ship—everyone should take the rest of the day off,” the Captain announces. 

Pavel could hug him. He doesn’t, but it’s close. “Really, Captain?” he asks, almost unable to believe it.

“Really, Ensign,” the Captain smiles back at him.

“I am sure that in my case such rest will be unnecessary, Ca—” Mr. Spock starts to protest, but the Captain holds up a hand and shushes him.

“No arguments from you today, Spock, I’m too beat.” He sighs again, heavily, and claps Spock on the shoulder. From the look on his face, he doesn’t appreciate the gesture. But he also doesn’t argue, and Pavel takes the opportunity to slip out of the transporter room and toward the turbo lift before he can think too much about the Captain and the First Officer and what they do in their off hours. 

The turbo lift doors open and he steps in, but before he can close the doors behind him he hears a set of footsteps hurrying around the corner and Dr. McCoy, still bleeding from a scratch above his right eye, appears. “Hold the lift,” he calls, even though Pavel already is. McCoy steps in next to him and the lift starts up with a jump.

“How’s your arm?” he asks. It’s an unexpected question, if only because Pavel’s not much in the mood for conversation, especially with Dr. McCoy of all people.

“Um,” he answers, “It is, um, fine. Just some bruises. I am okay.”

McCoy’s looking at him like he’s not sure he believes him, but he doesn’t press, and Pavel is grateful. Then he asks, to be polite more than anything, though partially out of genuine concern, about the Doctor’s well being.

“I’m fine,” he answers, then, following Pavel’s gaze to his forehead, swipes a hand at the red line above his eye and adds, “It’s just a scratch.”

Pavel does his best to hide his surprise when the doors open on his level and McCoy follows him out. “I was…I was just going to my quarters,” he explains, as if the Doctor had been wondering.

“I guessed,” McCoy answers, but makes no explanation of his own, and when he’s still by Pavel’s side a minute later, as Pavel keys in the code to his rooms, Pavel feels like there’s no choice but to invite him in.

Only then does McCoy hesitate, holding back in the hallway and asking, “Are you sure?” Pavel could hit him. But all he does is sigh his best frustrated sigh and motion the Doctor in behind him.

“Did you want something, Doctor?” he asks once the door whooshes shut. He’s already walking past his desk and toward his bed, and before McCoy has a chance to answer he sits down, starts to shove off his boots, and adds, “Because I want to go to sleep.”

He pulls off both boots, then his socks, and strips off his yellow overshirt too. McCoy is still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, arms crossed, eyes wandering everywhere but avoiding looking at Pavel himself. “I probably should have picked a better time,” he admits.

“No,” Pavel answers, surprised to realize that he means this, that he doesn’t mind the Doctor’s presence, is almost glad of it in this moment. He motions him over to the bed. “Sit. Say what you wanted to say. I am very good at listening with my eyes closed.” As he speaks he lies down on his back on his bed, waiting for the feel of the bed depressing under the Doctor’s weight and not surprised when, after a few more moments, it does. Still McCoy doesn’t speak, but Pavel is in no hurry. He feels quiet and calm and ready, ready for the Doctor to tell him anything, to do anything, even just sit there at the edge of his bed as the ship’s afternoon slides slowly into the ship’s night.

Faintly, he hears McCoy ask him, “Are you awake?”

“Mmmhmmm,” he answers, and opens his eyes in the hope this will be more convincing than a sleepy murmur of assent. McCoy is watching him carefully. Pavel sighs, rolls his eyes up to the ceiling and then back down, and slowly, a bit reluctantly, pulls himself up. “You must be very nervous,” he observes. Deep in his stomach, a warm burst of affection is surging up. He feels forgiving, ready to put the past in its place, and on top of this feeling he notices in himself a hint of curiosity. He waits again for the Doctor to speak, telling himself to be patient this time. He notes silently that McCoy didn’t argue with him, about being nervous.

He says, “I’m sorry,” and even though it is a long time coming Pavel is still surprised.

“Sorry, Doctor?”

“Yeah, for—” He coughs and turns his face away. He’s sitting near the bottom edge of the bed and Pavel is by the head, legs pulled up to cross underneath him. There’s a space between them and he wants to reach across it but he knows it wouldn’t do any good, not yet. “For—taking advantage of you,” McCoy is saying. “You were right, when you said that. I’m thirty-three but sometimes I think I’m the one who’s acting like the real teenager here. I haven’t been in a real relationship since my wife left me—not that that’s important.” He sighs, frustrated, face still turned away, and Pavel knows his words aren’t coming out the way that he wanted.

“I don’t have any good excuses, Chekov,” he says, trying for the first time to meet Pavel’s eye. His voice is one of finality; this is the last argument he has, the only thing he has left to offer. “I can only tell you that it would be different, this time.”

Pavel meets his gaze, as strong and unflinching as he can. He’s wide awake now, his fatigue nothing more than a persistent but dull background to his thoughts, and he’s thinking that yes, yes, yes he would take this man back even now, if only he could believe it was different at all.

“I accept your apology, Doctor,” he says, voice as steady as he can make it. “And I thank you for it. But—” He pauses for a moment, bites his lip hard between his teeth. “Why do you never use my name?”

McCoy’s eyes narrow in a frown, and he asks, “What?” in a harsh tone. Pavel admits to himself that his own train of thought didn’t come out well in his words. He tries to explain.

“When we talk, even in private, it is always ‘Chekov’ or ‘Ensign.’ Never ‘Pavel.’ Only—only once ‘Pavel.’” The memory rushes to the surface of his mind before he can stop it and he averts his eyes, his face warming with embarrassment. McCoy doesn’t say anything and doesn’t say anything and when Pavel looks up again he’s just staring, a small frown on his face.

“Maybe you do not remember?” he asks quietly.

“No,” McCoy answers quickly, flicking his own eyes down toward the bedspread. “I remember.”

Then he’s quiet again and, in the silence, Pavel starts to count his own heartbeats.

He’s startled when McCoy stands up, an expectantly energetic, almost violent action, and starts pacing, his hand to his mouth and his eyebrows close over his eyes, thinking. Pavel watches him nervously. Finally he stops at the head of the bed, close to Pavel again and stands tall over him. “Can’t we say we both fucked up here?” he asks. “Because I’ve never heard you call me by my first name outside of this room, and before you showed up at my office that day, I didn’t have any indication that we weren’t on the same page.”

At first Pavel thinks he might be able to stare him down, but he realizes before long that he can’t, that it’s the immature little boy in him who even wants to. He uncurls his legs from beneath him and stands; he’s still the shorter of them but he feels a bit more on equal ground. 

He hears himself say, “It was my fault, too,” and he’s almost surprised at his own words, except that they’re true. All he can say anymore. 

He shakes his head and breaks the stare. On the floor he can see his bare feet next to McCoy’s muddy black boots. “It must be different this time,” he insists. “If there is a ‘this time.’”

Again he feels two familiar fingers touch gently beneath his chin, tilting his head up. Whatever Pavel was expecting to see in McCoy’s expression it was not relief, but that’s the expression, the only word for it, written all across the Doctor’s face. “It will be different,” he insists. “It will be dinners together and mornings together and—hand holding in the hallway if that’s what you want. Let me prove it to you, Pavel.”

Pavel’s heart is beating painfully hard against his chest. His stomach is twisting with nerves. He looks down at the floor, letting the moment stretch and stretch, and he hopes Leonard will understand that he is not testing him, that if anything he’s testing himself, his own resolve. Finally he looks up again. Gently, he places his hands on either side of Leonard’s face, and gently he pulls him close, and gently he kisses him, careful and slow.

Leonard’s grinning by the time they pull away, the same wide smile Pavel had felt against his lips.

“That a yes, then?” Leonard asks.

“Yes, yes, yes, it is a yes,” he answers, and pulls him close again. He feels Leonard’s arms wrap tight around him and he drops his own arms around Leonard’s neck. This is a kiss to lose himself in, Leonard’s mouth opening against him, drawing his tongue in, and all of him just focused on the red, wet, heat, of him, no hurry and no rush in each measured, thought out movement. He pulls away slowly and kisses Leonard on the nose before he can convince himself not to.

“The Captain gave us the whole afternoon off,” he whispers.

“He did,” Leonard agrees.

“And I am very, very glad,” Pavel says, voice still low, barely more than a breath ghosting over the skin of Leonard’s cheek. He kisses him again, just a moment of their mouths pressed against each other, then mumbles against Leonard’s lips, “I am very glad he did because I missed you very, very much. So much…”

He trails off the last words into Leonard’s mouth, and talking slides back into kissing, and Pavel’s eyes flutter closed again. His thoughts are all unraveling and there is nothing more in his mind but that one word over and over, his answer, that yes, yes, yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for the following prompt on the st_xi_kink meme on livejournal:
> 
> "Chekov and McCoy fall into a habit of having sex several times a week, but outside the bedroom, Chekov finds the doctor completely ignores him. He won't even speak if they pass in the hallway and Chekov gets annoyed and decides that he doesn't want to be some sex buddy for anyone. He tells McCoy, who snaps back that a real relationship between them is possible and Chekov pretty much tells him he can fuck himself from now on. Chekov then starts dating someone else, forcing McCoy to admit he does want a relationship with the younger man, but he's going to have to win Chekov back. I'd like them to have a happy ending."


End file.
